Django Polls into AWS EB (Amazon Elastic Beanstalk)

This project was developed for fun and training and delivers a simple polling web application made with Python Django (Writing your first Django app). This repository holds the project implementation running locally and intends to guide the deploy into AWS EB.

Development

This project was developed inside a customized slim debian docker container with Python 3.6 and virtualenv, using Django and SQLite. It was all coded and commanded via Vim, Git shell (see Atlassian's 'Install Git' for instructions) and EB Cli command line (see Amazon's 'Install the EB CLI' for instructions).

Dependencies for local execution

Python 3.6 (works on 3.7)
Python pip 20.1.1
+ requirements.txt

Tools for Git download and EB deploy

Git 2.20.1
EB CLI 3.18.1

Instructions

Clone and enter this project:

$ git clone https://github.com/nandoabreu/django-polls.git
$ cd django-polls

Initialize virtualenv:

$ virtualenv .venv
$ source .venv/bin/activate

Install and configurate:

$ pip install -r requirements.txt
$ python manage.py collectstatic --noinput

Start the server:

$ python manage.py runserver 0:8080

Login admin console to update Questions:

http://localhost:8080/admin  
Username: admin  
Password: poll2020

Browse the poll:

http://localhost:8080/

Deploy the application in AWS Elastic Beanstalk

Prerequisites and commands can be found at Deploying a Django application .
Because of the sqlite module version in Amazon Linux, we will deploy this solution in Amazon Linux 2 with Python 3.7.

$ eb init -p python-3.7 django-polls --region us-east-2
$ eb init
$ eb create django-polls-env
$ echo http://$(eb status | grep CNAME | sed 's/.*: //')
$ eb open

Information

An issue about this deploy is that once it is published via AWS EB, static files (like style.css) are not read and the page lacks on style. Documents and forums are not very clear on pointing out this is a Django way of deploying and the web server must be instructed to use these files are served.

Once STATIC_ROOT and STATIC_URL are defined inside project/settings.py and added to urlpatterns inside project/urls.py, the problem is solved.

STATIC_ROOT holds the path where from the static files will be served.
collectstatic will place app and admin files inside STATIC_ROOT.
STATIC_URL holds the link to STATIC_ROOT, when requested from the browser.
+ static(settings[...] tells the web server that STATIC_URL is to be used.

Licenses

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.
Django is licensed under the Django's BSD license - visit djangoproject.com to know more.
"Project Logo" is a free icon from Icon Shop, as described by the site's license.
"Background" if a free image from WH Compare. As described in ther site: "This can be freely used on website designs and web design themes available for resale or for free redistribution".

nandoabreu / django-polls